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Rizvi held in early hours cop raid

Lawmen ransack BNP office, assault newsmen

Rashidul Hasan and Prabir Barua Chowdhury
In an outlandish pre-dawn raid on the Nayapaltan headquarters of the BNP, plainclothes detectives yesterday assaulted its Joint Secretary General Rizvi Ahmed and arrested him.
During the raid, cops also picked up BNP executive committee member Belal Ahmed, roughed up four reporters and three camera persons and damaged two video cameras for recording the arrests.
Nearly 11 hours after the arrests, the two were sent to jail through two Dhaka courts.
THE RAID
Witnesses said around 10 to 12 members of the Detective Branch of police climbed onto the balcony of the first floor of the
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office building using a ladder at 3:40am.
The cops then entered the floor by breaking the locks with a hammer and a cutting machine. They ransacked the rooms of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Senior Vice-chairman Tarique Rahman. The doors and furniture of those rooms were broken.
From the second floor, detectives rounded up Belal Ahmed, a close aide of Rizvi.
Four journalists and three cameramen of two private television channels were at the BNP office at that time. After confirming their identities, detectives took the seven to a room, took away their mobile phones from them and kept those in their (cops') possession until the drive ended.
As the journalists protested the misbehaviour of the cops, detectives pushed two journalists away.
Rizvi was staying in his room on the second floor. The cops broke the glass door of his room and hurled abuse at him.
While Rizvi was being rounded up, some members of the DB team ransacked other rooms on the floor, including that of BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, according to witnesses.
Rizvi, who had been staying at the BNP office round the clock since October to avoid arrest, was dragged down towards the ground floor.
After round 40 minutes, the DB members left the BNP office breaking the locks of the collapsible gate at the main entrance to the office.
When the cameramen of Somoy, Ekattor and Gazi Television moved to record the scene of Rizvi being taken away, police hurled abuse at them and roughed them up to stop the newsmen from discharging their duties. At that time, two video cameras were damaged by the policemen. SENTTO JAIL
Policed produced Rizvi and Belal before two sepa-
rate courts in Dhaka, seeking 20-day and 10-day remand for each for interrogation in connection with two cases, reported our court correspondent.
After holding a brief hearing, the court sent Rizvi to jail and set December 4 for hearing on the remand and bail prayers in the case filed by Shahbagh police over Thursday's arson attack on a bus that left two dead and 17 burnt.
Rizvi was shown arrested in another case filed by Paltan police on September 24 in connection with vandalism, arson, and throwing cocktails at law enforcers.
Belal was shown arrested in the same case. Police prayed for a 10-day remand of Belal, but the hearing for the remand prayer could not be held as papers of the case were in the higher court for hearing the bail prayers of five BNP leaders, including Moudud Ahmed and MK Anwar.
SALAHUDDIN NEW SPOKESPERSON
Salahuddin Ahmed, another joint secretary general of the BNP, has been assigned the duty of party spokesperson in the absence of Rizvi.
Talking to The Daily Star, Salahuddin complained that law enforcers yesterday went to his residences in the city's Gulshan and in Pekua upazila of Cox's Bazar and enquired about him.
Meanwhile, a delegation of 15 pro-BNP professionals, led by BNP chairperson's adviser Khandaker Mahbub Hossain, yesterday visited the BNP office.
"We didn't see such an incident even in 1971 [Liberation War]," he said.
HARTAL IN THREE DISTRICTS
Local units of the BNP-led 18-party combine yesterday called a dawn-to-dusk hartal for today in Kurigram and Rangpur districts, and in Sonagazi and Chagolnaiya upazilas of Feni to protest the arrest of Rizvi and Belal, report our correspondents.